A CASUALTY of MOTHER NATURE

By now I should be home in Scotland with my family ready to begin a new, and very happy chapter of my life. However I hadn't bargained on Mother Nature thwarting my attempts.

I left my apartment in Shanghai at 3-30am on 1st March, some 12 hours later I arrived in Dubai, so far so good. It was a long but good flight. On arriving in the lounge in the airport it became clear I would be going no further, not today at least. I know the weather forecast for UK was not good with a lot of snow arriving, but I was hoping I might just be ahead of it. No such luck. An hour later I was in The Meridian hotel with the temperature outside touching 30c. Not bad you might think, but remember I am headed to Scotland where it is very chilly and I am dressed accordingly, boots and cashmere scarf included. My luggage would remain in the airport as I am booked onto the flight the following afternoon. Thankfully I have enough packed in hand luggage to see me through.

After contacting family and letting them know I was stranded I decided all I can do is to suck it up. After all I wasn't exactly roughing it.

So nothing to do but make the best of it. After all a lovely hotel cannot be sneezed at. A nice bath, dinner in my room and I settled down with my magazine app, READLY, if you haven't tried it I urge you to do so. readly.com  My iPad provided me with TV, nothing much apart from news channels on TV here, and if I see another weather warning I may scream, so the night passed uneventfully.

I awake to more disastrous weather reports. My predicament is truly a third world I problem, I do realise that, but it soon became obvious I may not be going home today either. So now I am really not a happy bunny. No amount of food and baths are going to cheer me up today if this is the case! So decided to blog my woes. A problem shared as they say..........

I enjoyed a delicious breakfast, slightly spoiled by some very noisy Chinese people in the restaurant, and I thought I was getting away from it all. Chatted with others experiencing the same issues as I have and the general mood seems to be positive. Still at this point there was still the possibility of us getting home today. Stopped into the shop to buy a deodorant and came out five GBP lighter.

By late morning it became clear all flights were indeed cancelled. So I will hunker down for another night and hopefully get home tomorrow.

This will be my last post as "thecelticcookinshnghai" I will be starting a new blog to reflect my new life. I will keep everyone updated and I hope you will follow me on my next journey in life.
Thanks to everyone who follows me and to those I have come to know through the comments.

ZAI JIAN Shanghai